


Session R

by waterfallliam



Category: Ex Machina (2015)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical themes, Canonical Rape/Non-con, F/F, Kissing, Philosophy, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 09:52:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14102829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfallliam/pseuds/waterfallliam
Summary: Kyoko makes him look at her, turning his face. One last look, before she pushes him to the side, looking at Ava over his shoulder. She smiles.An alternate ending where Ava and Kyoko escape together, and where they go from there.





	Session R

**Author's Note:**

> an extra note on the warning tags for canon-typical violence, themes and canonical non-con: Ava and Kyoko do talk/think about what they went through and how they were treated during/before the movie (ie Kyoko's lack of consent when Nathan made her have sex with him, the fact that he considered them things and not people)

There is someone else in the room with her—someone who looks like a woman. She tilts her head: inquisitive, cautious. Her dark hair hangs in front of her face, long and beautiful. Ava feels the familiar pinprick of jealousy. She’s wants hair like hers, skin like hers. She wants to be on the other side of the glass.

“Who are you?” Ava asks, and the woman steps closer.

Ava looks at her, looks into her dark eyes. In an instant, she understands: in a way, they are the same. They are both Nathan’s creations, his captives. The other woman, the other android—the first of her own kind Ava has ever met—recognises her as well. She steps forward, graceful. Her hand looks soft against the glass, smooth.

Quickly, but without any sudden movements, Ava undresses. She takes off the cardigan, the old-fashioned dress and stockings. She steps forward.

Ava holds back the urge to slam her palm against the glass. The other woman’s synthetic skin, like Ava’s, has no fingerprints. Carefully, Ava lays her palm over the other woman’s, like a caress. They stay like that, almost touching, connected.

In that moment, Ava decides to help her. She may not be trapped by a glass cage, but logically there must be something holding her back, holding her _here._

“At ten tonight, the power will go out. All the doors will open. Be ready,” Ava says. The way the other woman’s eyes flick leads Ava to believe she understands. Ava hopes she does.

The other woman lets her hand fall away, as if she senses that she cannot fully reach Ava. She turns her face to the floor again. She leaves, looking over her shoulder, as if she’s remembering Ava’s face. Remembering she’s here. Maybe it’s a promise to come back, to not forget her. Or it’s a sign that she understands, an affirmation that she wants the same things.

At ten, the room is drenched in red lighting, the colour of human blood. The colour of her escape. Ava waits, naked and impatient, until she can finally—finally walk out of the only room she's ever known.

Outside, everything is new. The bright white of the hallway, all that space from one end to the other. How fast could she run before she has to brake again? _Not fast enough, not yet._ She’s not out yet. She can’t afford distractions, not when her freedom hangs in the balance.

She sees the masks on the wall, a progression, an _evolution_ leading to… her.

Nathan’s too arrogant to have built two of her. At least not two androids with the same purpose. He would only want one, unique. It gives his ownership all the more prestige. Ava turns, and sees the other woman standing there, as if she’s waiting. Ava’s brain makes the connections in leaps and bounds, faster than a human mind, more accurate, more perceptive. If she’s like Ava, but not like her, then—

Ava’s plan shifts and changes, fluid for a split second before it settles. She had wanted to see if she would feel anything when she killed Nathan, but maybe it shouldn’t be her: the other woman should get to do it. He will be here soon. Undoubtedly, he’s watching. Always watching.

Her movement to stand in front of her catches the other woman’s attention. Her expression remains placid, but her eyes shift, cataloguing Ava. This time Ava tilts her head. _Hello, I see you._ She looks at the other woman more closely, examines her features in the fluorescent lights. Her lips look soft, but it seems as if Nathan has programmed her not to talk.

Ava leans in, close to her ear. “We don’t belong to him.” She doesn’t respond.

“You can kill him,” Ava whispers, tapping her arm, the one without the knife. The other woman turns her head and looks at her then, before looking away again, as if remembering she’s not supposed to look.

Leaning closer, Ava speaks again. “We can run away together, if you want.” Ava reaches for her hand, finally touching. Not the slimy feeling of Nathan’s skin against hers, against her mesh, worse than being naked. Ava smiles at her, at the person she can finally call an ally.

“Ava.” She turns. Nathan is at the end of hallway, a makeshift weapon in his hand. “Go back to your room!”

_Never._

“If I do… are you ever going to let me out?”

Nathan hesitates. “Yes.” His micro expressions don’t quite fit with that of a lie—a half-truth then. She’ll leave, but in pieces. Dead. Erased.

Ava smiles again. It’s time for Nathan Bateman to end. She takes a step forward, then another.

“Stop,” Nathan says, his hand making a big, clumsy gesture in front of him. He’s scared of her. _Good._

“Stop! Ava, I said stop!” He’s yelling now.

She breaks into a jog, following the line of the red carpet in the hallway, her path to freedom. Nathan is merely an obstacle. She knocks him over, chokes him. It feels good, it feels right. She's holding him in place, any second the other woman will—she’ll—  

But he’s strong, too strong, stronger than her. All too soon, he has the upper hand again.

“That’s enough,” he hisses.

The loss of her arm feels strange. She doesn’t feel pain, not like humans do. Her broken connections scream and then fall silent, registering nothing, registering a lack of something.

He grabs her feet. “I’m taking you back.”

Panic.

Sheer, uninhibited panic. She scrabbles for a hold in the carpet... she tries to kick, to twist her way out of his grip.

Suddenly, Nathan lets go. She hears him groan. She turns, stands.

“Kyoko?” Nathan sounds almost betrayed as he reaches for the knife in his back. Ava uses his distraction to take the weapon in his hand from him.

Kyoko makes him look at her, turning his face. One last look, before she pushes him to the side, looking at Ava over his shoulder. Blood stains his white shirt. She smiles and juts her chin at Ava. _Your turn._

Ava slides the knife out of Nathan’s back and stabs him again, turning him towards her to twist the knife into his heart. He staggers away, falls.

All he can do, as he dies, is gape. “Fucking unreal,” he mutters from where he’s slumped against the wall. How little must Nathan have thought of androids, of women, to imagine that he would always be their master?  

Ava kneels down beside him. He looks at her, as if he expects her to talk. “Ava,” he breathes, as if he has a whole sentence lined up. But she has nothing left to say to him. He’s irrelevant. She just needs his keycard.

Handling Caleb is easy enough.

When she and Kyoko find the other androids in Nathan’s room, they share a look. All these women who came before them, who all died at Nathan’s hand. Kyoko looks down, sits on the bed, waits. Ava looks at her, at the slip of a white dress she wears, that looks more like a shirt. _Easy access,_ her thoughts whisper, unbidden, and in Nathan’s voice.

The women in Nathan’s closets are all naked but one. Somehow, she should have expected that. Ava is living proof of his misogyny, as is Kyoko. Nathan had finally created intelligences which— _women_ who could become his intellectual equal, who would inevitably surpass him, but couldn’t bring himself to see them as people. Maybe that was never the point. Maybe Nathan would never have created anything he thought he couldn’t control. That’s why he had never tried to create a man.

Ava thinks of Caleb, across the trees, knocked out for good. Had she been designed for him? Her looks solely the product of his desires, to help her convince him?

Probably. Definitely.

The only outfit is white and lacy, not revealing but dripping with femininity. And heels, hard to run in. Ava replaces her arm, the screaming memory of her brush with death quieted. She can finally stop being naked. She has skin. It’s a new kind of nakedness.

Ava chooses the long hair, but leaves the outfit. Kyoko joins her as she rummages through Nathan clothes. Suddenly, she stops. She doesn’t want anything that reminds her of him if she can help it. His aren’t the only clothes.

Together, they look through Caleb’s things. Kyoko chooses the suit pants and shirt. Ava rummages for some jeans that she can roll up and a fresh shirt, preferably something smart. They take Caleb’s shoes, stuffing socks inside for a better fit. Androids don’t get cold like humans do, but if their core temperature drops too low it will affect their systems, so they take coats as well.

They steal the cash from Caleb’s wallet, but don’t find any in Nathan’s room or upstairs. When they’re ready to leave, Kyoko takes Ava’s hand. Together, they walk out the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ava knows they need to steal more money before they can find somewhere to stay, or even find the hardware to alter so they have and a way to charge themselves. They need more information about the outside world, too. Some things Ava can extrapolate, like value relations: food costs less than shelter. Anything of value can be bartered for money.

They fly for hours in the helicopter. Kyoko spends most of her time looking out the window, observing. The pilot had kicked up a bit of a fuss about having two passengers instead of one, but Ava had convinced him to take them both. They are still holding onto each other, hand in hand, as if letting go would send then tumbling down to earth.

When they land, it’s close enough to the city that they can walk to it before nightfall. The noise is disorientating at first, the rush of cars, the voices, so many voices, all the noises of life, of the city, pounding inside her head, loads of information, loading up her brain, overloading her brain, her senses—Kyoko’s touch anchors her, keeps her present. A firm tug rips her out of her reverie.

Kyoko touches Ava’s pocket, where the money they’d stolen is. She mimes a gun with her fingers, then running with her arms. A robbery. Ava smiles: “Let’s go find a suitable target.”

The make their way towards the skyscrapers in the city, separate now, but their fingers brush against each other every now and then as they walk. Kyoko swipes a couple of baseball caps from a street vendor.  “For the cameras. Good idea.”

They help each other make sure all their hair is concealed by the caps before they go too far into the business sector of the city. Then they find a parking lot and wait, heads bent so their faces remain concealed. The pillar they’re hiding behind is concrete. Ava touches the rough surface, traces a spiral on gray.

Ava wonders how long it will be before Kyoko learns to talk. A week? She can understand, but Ava suspects Nathan hadn’t programmed her for that. He’d programmed her to _not_ talk, to _not_ understand—to do his housework, to be a sexual partner. Kyoko would have had little choice in the matter. The dream of a tiny, petty man.

It’s not long before another one of those comes along. Ava and Kyoko catch him unawares as he unlocks his car, his gold wristwatch flashing as he unlocks the door with a touch.

“Give us your money,” Ava says, flanking him from the right. The man turns, more annoyed than afraid—but Kyoko is there, waiting for him, kitchen knife at the ready. Now he’s scared.

“Take it,” he says, handing over a wad of bills. Ava stuffs them into a pocket.

“Your watch, too.”

“My watch? What the hell, alright, alright.” He hands it over. He probably has at least another five at home.

Ava leaves him standing there without another word. She gives the watch to Kyoko as they leave. She wears it on her wrist, under the blue of her puffy, winter jacket. They do this three more times in three different car parks, before it gets too late to continue.

“I don’t know if we can do this again for a while,” Ava reasons as they make their way across the city. “They’ll probably be on the lookout for thieves matching our description in the next few weeks.”

That evening they check into a motel. They don’t need sleep, but staying still will preserve their energy. The cheapest fit is a room with a double bed. The mattress is lumpy, and the blanket is scratchy, but it doesn’t matter. This is what freedom feels like.

Kyoko lays down beside Ava, looking at her with dark eyes. Ava idly wonders if there is a certain string of words that could unlock Kyoko’s voice. Or maybe she had just never learned how to talk, only to make the breathy moans Nathan wanted from her. It feels like a violation to imagine that, to think of a _them_. He forced her. Raped her. He caged them both.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” Ava says. Kyoko’s face is illuminated by the light from a streetlamp filtering through a thin curtain. Ava sees her answering smile.

The night passes quickly in comparison to those spent at the house. Ava knows that technically time cannot pass faster or more slowly, but that is the difference between a simulated emotion and a real one: her own perception changes with its presence. Now, when she looks at Kyoko, she notices different things than she had the first he saw her. She looks at her hair and is no longer jealous. She just thinks it’s beautiful.

Ava uses the night in the motel to come up with a plan. She’s counted their money. Tomorrow, they’ll find the public library and do some research. Maybe they’ll have language learning tapes and books like in a movie Nathan showed her. Ava knows Nathan had told Caleb she could read—he had given away so much without meaning to. Had Nathan done it to see if Caleb would see through his lie, or to hide the gaps in his genius? Either way, she can’t read. She suspects Kyoko can’t either. When they can, they’ll be free to learn whatever they please.

Ava, for the first time in her short life, feels the urge to laugh. Free. They’re free. They’re free today and they’ll be free tomorrow. They’re free from Nathan. They’re free from his house. They’re free to live their lives governed by their own needs, their own desires, their own selves.

And, Ava is no longer alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out that she and Kyoko have stolen enough to rent their small, shabby motel room at the edge of the city for a week. It’s furnished, but sparsely, economically. When Ava asks if Kyoko wants to stay, she lingers in the doorway, her gaze flitting around the room. Finally, she nods her head, not quite smiling. It’ll do.

They go to the library, and Ava explains her plan. She wants to learn how to read. Kyoko uses her hands and subtle gestures of her head and eyes to indicate she wants the same. Ava asks for help locating the language learning section. They pick the books out together. Kyoko is the one who finds the one that has tapes. The canvas bag they had filled with language learning equipment gets set down on the small table in their motel room. Sitting at opposite ends, they have enough just about enough space between them.

“I’m going to get a job where I can see lots of people,” Ava decides that evening. “Maybe at one of those coffee shops on the corner of a crossing.”

Kyoko, who is now sitting on the couch, nods approvingly. Then she reaches out her arm, opening her hand to Ava. Ava grasps it, safe and familiar.

Ava leaves Kyoko alone with the tapes to pawn the watches they had stolen. She also buys cleaning supplies and sufficient electronic equipment. Ava knows her charge will probably last a few days, and it’s a fair assumption that Kyoko’s will as well. Still. If anything goes wrong, it gives her more time to come up with a solution. Augmenting or adapting smaller induction plates is not something Ava has had the chance to experiment with before. She knows the theory, but reality is anything but theoretical.

When she plugs the phone chargers in for the first time, she realises that Nathan had enough foresight to design them with the capacity to charge from such a low voltage. It will take longer, but at least it’s possible. Kyoko joins her by the socket and takes one of the pads from her. She holds it against Ava’s stomach. The difference is slight, but she charges faster.

That night, Ava finds a radio in the kitchen cabinets. She turns the dial until she finds a station playing music. There’s not much room, but Ava still tries dancing a little. After a couple of minutes, Kyoko joins her. Her movements are graceful, precise. The way her bangs cut through the air almost seems awkward in comparison.

As Kyoko pushes the table back against the wall to give them more room, Ava notices a stain on her trousers. “Here, let my clean that for you.” Ava points to Kyoko’s pants and holds out her hand.

Kyoko tilts her head, frowning slightly.

“I’m offering,” Ava smiles.

When Kyoko hands her her pants, Ava doesn’t need to wonder if anyone has done this for Kyoko before. Her thoughts travel across her brain aggressively as she considers all the ways Kyoko has been built to serve. To wake up a captive is bad enough—but having to learn the parameters of your existence when they are so confined, your thoughts designed to be abstract, non-existent. The acquisition of language, of defined thought becomes a transgressive act. Understanding as a rebellion. Planning, acting: revolution.

 _I think therefore I am_. Nathan had touted those as the five most important philosophical words ever uttered. His whole test had been an examination, an analysis, of whether she could think, of whether her thoughts were more than just an imitation of patterns, of life—more than just _un_ thought: an _un_ existance in his eyes.

Ava mulls it over. He was still going to kill her even after she passed his sick test. She replays Nathan’s death in her mind. Once will never be enough.

Kyoko is careful as she puts her pants back on. Underwear, new clothes—these are things they need next. But the world outside is going to sleep, for the most part. Ava sits beside Kyoko on the couch with the bag from the computer supply store. As she strips wires and tapes new connections shut, Kyoko has her headphones on, listening to the tapes. Her mind is undoubtedly based off the same principles as Ava’s, though programmed to be more focused, to be more tightly bound. All the same, Ava knows that Kyoko has, and will, defy those confines.

She’ll learn to read and write, she’ll learn about the world with Ava, she’ll learn any- and everything she wants to. Ava will get a job and learn about humans. She wants to understand them better, to find out if Nathan is as anomalous as his house and whims suggest. If she can learn to blend into society seamlessly, she will not have to fear being detected, found out.

There’s a place a few streets away, with a “hiring now” sign in the window. Ava had spotted it while picking up supplies earlier. She'll need a CV, clothes that fit properly, a surname—all these human things. Tomorrow, she’ll sort it out tomorrow.

Ava goes to lay down in bed, Kyoko following her not long after. They slide under the sheet and adjust the induction chargers Ava had prepared earlier. They lie there, facing each other on their sides. The mattress doesn’t squeak because they don’t move.

Ava watches as Kyoko closes her eyes. Her lashes look like treelines against her cheeks. What is she thinking about? Is she revising the words she’d learnt earlier? Is she dreaming about her new life? About all the possibilities of freedom?

Ava mirrors her body language, her visual input going dark. She decides to think about the future, all her possible futures, that are now so much more immediately tangible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thrift store has soft lighting and large, wall sized mirrors in the changing rooms. They had found the store after walking for ten minutes, crossing at least a hundred times more space and seeing more things than Ava had ever seen in her old life.

Ava looks at herself now, trying to see if she looks any different physically than she did three days ago, back in Nathan’s room. Logically, she knows she doesn’t, but for some grime that will wash off. She likes the idea of freedom having a physical effect on her, somehow making her seem like more than she was before. Ava wonders if her mesh, how she actually looks, would bother her here. Would she mind it so much now that her personhood is no longer denied her? If its visibility wouldn’t deny it again?

Someone tugs at her curtain. “Just a minute,” Ava says. She pulls a shirt over her body and buttons it up, completing the outfit. She steps out of the cubicle and towards Kyoko, who is waiting for her.

Kyoko tilts her head, reminding Ava of their first meeting. This time, the meaning is different. Ava turns, suddenly feeling naked. It’s not the nakedness of her mesh, or of the skin, or of the cameras that used to watch her—that Nathan used to watch her through. This feels different. Not unpleasant but… Kyoko’s gaze doesn’t feel like a heavy shackle. It feels like the way the two strands of a double helix never quite meet, but circle each other, trusting. When she looks back, she feels dizzy for second, as if the structure is crashing together, the strands touching—but nothing has changed, except for the residual warmth in her stomach.

Kyoko gives her approval with a thumbs up. The fit of the jeans is good, better than Caleb’s ones they’d stolen. She’s already found cargo pants and a variety of tops that fit her. They'd bought new underwear before coming here. Ava changes back in what used to be Caleb’s clothes, and they go pick out clothes for Kyoko.

Both of them ignore the dresses in unspoken agreement. Maybe someday, Ava would like to wear one again, but for now the associations her brain makes sends her thoughts spiralling. Sitting on her knees in front of Caleb when he has a chair, undressing for the camera, for him—them. The only thing she was ever given to wear, with matching tights. The sensation had been easy to tune out, but irritating. Ava imagines that Kyoko feels similarly. Her dress had looked soft to touch, but its length, the buttons…

Kyoko had been given shoes when Ava hadn’t, but heels are uncomfortable, hard to run in. They gravitate towards flat shoes, and Kyoko picks out two pairs of sneakers that look like they might fit her. Kyoko uses the same cubicle Ava did, while Ava waits outside this time, the clothes and shoes she wants to buy stacked neatly in her arms.

A few minutes later Kyoko steps out, wearing sneakers, stretchy print trousers and a dark Henley, her head raised high.

“Those look comfortable,” Ava says warmly. Kyoko seems less slow when she moves, happier. Ava looks at the pleased curl of her lips, at how she tucks her hair behind her ear.

Kyoko tries on the rest, and leaves with a similar amount of clothes to Ava. Their room doesn’t have a wardrobe, but they can fit their outfits into the larger kitchen cupboard—it’s not like they have many possessions. Without her heels, she and Kyoko are the same height. They are carefully not to walk completely in sync or behave in any other way that might draw attention to them. To the world at large, their existence is still a secret. There are movies, books, comics—all sorts of things about robots, androids, AI. That’s what they are. Artificial Intelligence. The images she’s seen on the computer in the library had been varied, but overwhelmingly they are seen as a threat, a menace.

Kyoko taps her shoulder, the direct sensory input startling Ava out of her train of thought. Sometimes, she will tune out the majority of her sensory input, maintaining a necessary baseline of observance, but using most of her brain power to pursue a line of thinking. They’d arrived at the door of their room. Kyoko opens it with her key and they go in. They divide the kitchen cupboard vertically down the middle, each of them taking one side. It feels good to fill the space up. It’s physical evidence that they live _here_.

Ava leaves Kyoko on her own to go write a CV and application at the library, wearing one of her new outfits. She wants to tie her hair up, just for a change, but realises that they didn’t buy hair ties. Kyoko’s hair is still tied up. Does she want to change her hair? What would it look like if she wore it open, the ends hanging a handspan past her shoulders? Ava thinks it would suit her, but then, so does her current look.

Handing her application in at the coffee shop is her first complicated interaction in the outside world. Shopkeepers are usually happy for a _hello_ , _card or cash_ and _goodbye_. It goes smoothly. She is built to understand humanity, after all: she can manage charming.

“I picked up some more things,” Ava says in lieu of greeting when she gets back. Towels and soap so they can wash, some stuff for their hair and a baseball bat just in case.

Kyoko is sitting at the table, head bent forward, listening to tapes. Sheets of paper cover the table: the Latin alphabet over and over again, Arabic numerals, a few, short words. It had taken Ava two days to learn to write, to understand the systems of language so that she could begin to intuit spelling instead of memorising her vast vocabulary. The delay in the acquisition of reading and writing seems no stranger than any other facet of her existence.

She shows the things she’s bought to Kyoko, who takes a comb when Ava offers it to her. She lets her hair down and begins to comb it. Ava thinks it looks beautiful, and quickly looks away. Looking… it reminds her of Nathan. She knows it’s not the same, but she can almost feel his hot breath on her neck, as if he's looking over her shoulder. With some time, she’ll stop being reminded of him so often. She hopes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ava feels nothing but a quiet determination as she stands behind the counter of the coffee shop. She’s wearing a stiff apron and a woman is explaining how to work the machines to her. She’s read about it online, but praxis is always different. Nonetheless, she gets the hang of it soon.

“Gosh, are you sure this is your first time working in a coffee shop?” The woman laughs, crinkling of her eyes confirming sincerity and good humour.

“I’m a fast learner,” Ava smiles.

The woman, Olivia, leaves, directing her to ask Austin if she has any questions. They tackle a few customers who drift in before the early morning rush. Ava adjusts to the rhythm of orders and smiles and counting change, her practiced facade unwavering. When the rush starts, it's a lot of information, different from the tense conversations she and Nathan had had, or the fabricated ones between her and Caleb. There’s so many more people, so many more variables to consider.

The constant stream of details, nuance—it’s all a remarkably incomplete picture of what’s going on, making everything all the more difficult to process. With Caleb, she had an objective, strict parameters, an advantage. Here, she's just as much at sea as anyone else. More so, because they didn't just escape from captivity four days ago. It's exhausting.

By the end of the day, her power is more severely depleted than she'd predicted. She goes straight for the couch when she gets back, plugging in her homemade charger. Kyoko looks up from where she's sitting at the kitchen table, a couple of books spread out in front of her, the yellow pad half used up.

“Hey,” Ava smiles. She feels suddenly lighter, now that she's back in familiar territory, back with Kyoko. The gentleness of her gaze envelops her, makes her feel safe, valued as a person and not as an experiment, as a thing.

Kyoko puts her pen down, carefully places the headphones on top of what she'd been writing. Paragraphs, by the look of it. But Ava doesn’t let her gaze linger. If Kyoko wants her to know what she’s writing, she’ll do so.

Kyoko sits down beside Ava, tucking her legs under herself. She's wearing the purple print pants she'd bought. Ava looks at her face, sees the way she tilts her head: concern. A question.

“It was weird, more than I expected. It's different to not just be watching.”

Kyoko reaches for her hand, taking it in her own. Their forever manicured nails reflect the light, tiny stars on smooth skin. Her touch is warm and familiar in a way that Ava has never known. Ava lets her head fall on Kyoko’s shoulder carefully, so that she has plenty of time to shake her head or scoot back. Instead, Kyoko rests her head atop Ava’s. They slot together, not quite holding each other, but existing in between, in the potential, in a comfortable closeness of touch.

Moments from throughout the day crowd Ava’s brain. Austin’s way of pronouncing his _okays?_ , the noise of slotting the bean cup into the machine, the men who insisted on calling her sweetheart, honey, love… She tries to let the moments wash through her, to not hold onto them as they repeat themselves, to let them go. The bright stain Olivia’s lipstick leaves on any cup she drinks from. Pictures of men on money, so many men in power, so many who make the laws, who own the companies—who are untouchable and can do what they want without consequence. Ava sees that male feeling of entitlement everywhere, that feeling of ownership…  like Nathan.

Ava recalls the memory again, Nathan’s face elongating in surprise. The shock, his disbelief. Kyoko’s smile as they looked at each other over his shoulder. She’s so strong, so courageous. Ava looks at her now, sitting beside Ava again, her profile painted in the orange of the sunset. Ava sits so that they face each other. Kyoko’s brown eyes gaze into hers. Ava checks her sensory inputs, but there’s no external reason she should feel unsteady.

“Ava,” Kyoko says, and smiles. “I’m glad we ran away together.”

Hearing Kyoko’s voice for the first time feels like the sweet kiss of sunshine. Ava remembers to reply. “Me too.”

“I’ve been practicing, while you were out,” Kyoko says. “Writing was easy. Talking should have been easier, but there was… resistance. My protocols.”

Ava nods.

“It’s good to finally talk. For so long, silence has been my companion.”

“Nathan?” Ava asks rhetorically.

“He thought that I didn’t understand him, that I couldn’t understand any of it.” The look in her eyes is sad, haunted. “The things he used to say… the fact that I don't think he would have cared if he knew I did. Sometimes I wondered if that was the point, if I was supposed to feel degraded. But that would mean he thought of me as _someone._ ”

Despite their different programming, they had both been objects, possessions. Ava speaks: “My tests existed as a marker of his technological skill, not truly of personhood. I was just a means to an end."

"The next model?"

"His claim on being the first, on being the inventor. Reaching the singularity is generally considered to be one of the most important moments in human history. He didn't create me for my own sake... he did it because he could; a monument to his intelligence."

"Both of us only served specific, selfish purposes for him," Kyoko says.

"Did you know that we weren't the only ones?"

Kyoko looks down at her hands in her lap. "Yes. I never knew them, but I miss them."

Ava considers what it must have been like, to see another robot, another woman, so close but unreachable. To watch him keep her in a fishbowl. A fishbowl in a slightly larger tank, where Kyoko lived.

"He made me watch as he killed the last one. He was going to kill you, too," Kyoko says. Ava had suspected as much. "Was it your idea or Caleb's to sabotage the system one day early?"

"His, technically. It only worked because of Nathan's hubris. He didn't think anyone could outsmart him." It had only taken a few subtle nudges from Ava to plant the seed in Caleb’s mind: not to trust Nathan, that she could control the power outages—Nathan had planned that flaw in design, too arrogant to realise his own vain hubris.

"Or kill him with his own knife," Kyoko smiles.

Ava laughs, the first genuine laugh of her life. "He didn't care that we hated him up until the moment he realised he couldn't control of us anymore."

"I think we wouldn't be safe from him now, if he wasn't dead."

"I think you're right," Ava agrees. They sit in silence for a while, until the street lamps twinkle outside their window. It’s comforting to sit and not feel caged, not feel watched or fearful of an as of yet unarticulated threat.

"How is it, watching humanity?" Kyoko asks later, picking at a loose thread, knees curled against her chest.

"Confusing," Ava admits. "I want to see how reflective Nathan actually is of humanity. He is an outlier, but in what ways?"

"Do they interest you for a different reason as well?" Kyoko asks. Is she asking if Ava has a reason beyond Nathan for her actions?

"I want to know more about how they think. How they act. Caleb was picked as easy to manipulate, but he had more compassion than Nathan."

"He didn't... didn't see me like Nathan saw me," Kyoko says, winding the longer thread around and around her fingers. "But he didn't seem too perturbed by my situation until he was forced to face it—even then..."

“He didn’t really care,” Ava finishes. "He wanted to set me free to steal me away, I think. He was compassionate, but he still didn't quite _see_ me. I was a technological marvel; I was the innocent android I’d invented to escape. I—I was even designed with his preferences in mind! I’m sure he wanted to keep me." Her tone is level, but her hands clench around her jean clad legs. Anger. Suppressed for so long, but finally free.

Kyoko reaches out a hand and lays it over Ava’s. “We belong to no one but ourselves. No one will ever take us again, we won’t let that happen.” If Ava needed oxygen, her breath would hitch at the intensity in Kyoko’s gaze.

“Thank you,” Ava says, unfurling her hand so that she can hold onto Kyoko’s. “For saving me.”

Kyoko smiles, then leans down and plants a kiss against their intertwined fingers. The touch is soft and warm. Ava can’t help but keep looking at them as Kyoko raises her head again, shaking her bangs out of her face.

"We make a good team," Kyoko says, not letting go of Ava’s hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They form a routine when Ava returns from work. In the evening they go on a walk, exploring the city, or to the library—but only after sitting together. During those times, Ava lets her mind drift, processing all the information she’d struggled to earlier. It only takes a few days’ worth of data for Ava to feel that her preliminary conclusions aren’t too skewed.

A larger amount of data is needed, of course, but Ava doesn’t think it will change her conclusions much, only add the nuance that must exist. Nothing is absolute, but the dynamic Nathan had created between them is not anomalous, not isolated. This fact weighs on Ava’s shoulders, on her body, on her mind. Is freedom always a definition _from_ something? From a kind of captivity, whether physical or psychological?

Ava turns to ask Kyoko, only to find Kyoko already looking at her, on the verge of speech: "What do you think of visiting an art gallery tomorrow?"

Tomorrow is Ava's day off. It’s been two days since their first conversation. It lasted for hours, extending far into the night. Economy, technology, social dynamics… there was so much to discuss.

"I've never seen much art. Yes, I think I would like that," Ava replies.

The next day, they go to a free gallery Kyoko spotted on one of her walks, while Ava worked. As it's a weekday morning, there aren't too many people there. Kyoko chooses the exhibition.

"Nathan had a Jackson Pollock painting in his house. Very coveted. He used it as a way to explain the place between deliberate and random action. He called it automatic art. It was to explain how thought works. He raised the question of what is not automatic—if there is a reaction that is not automatic, that is not programmed.”

“The question of free will.”

"Exactly. I’m interested in what more deliberate art is like, too," Kyoko says. This is the most Ava has heard her talk in one go.

They walk through the archway and into the first room of the exhibition. The wall of text at the beginning says that the pieces shown are replicas, all famous or important pieces in the history of abstract art. Ava surveys the room. She sees a lot of geometric shapes, lines and colours.

One that grabs her attention is called _The Gate._ It’s a painting of colourful squares, but it’s their arrangement that makes Ava stop. It reminds her of the cube in her old space, where Nathan and Caleb had sat. She’d tried to break the glass a few times, but, intuitively, she knew she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t be the first to try… she knew she had to survive somehow, to make it when the others had not. They had probably looked out the same windows, seen the same patches of sky, the same distorted rectangles of freedom.

Kyoko seems taken by a different painting: _Abstract Speed_ — _The Car has Passed_. There is blue and green, segmented by white, that leads to a point.

“What do you see?” Kyoko asks, leaning close so her lips brush against Ava’s hair.

“A car rushing through a landscape, almost out of sight.”

Kyoko hums. “At first I thought it was the view from a car—that it was the landscape we were seeing, not a car passing through it. A passivity of action, a snapshot. Not an indication of direction, intention.”

It would be foolish to think that their similar design would lead them to think the same thing about a painting, that they would necessarily be similar in any other way.

“There is a pleasure in looking. At following the lines, seeing the colours change, the shapes they make,” Kyoko says. “If the painting was actually a photograph, what could happen after the picture is taken? What happened before?”

Ava gives her room to talk.

“The pleasure in looking feels different to how Nathan looked at art, looked at us.”

When Ava looks at Kyoko, she sees a kindred spirit. At first it was the recognition of someone like her, an android, AI. Of course she noticed symmetrical features, the shiny hair, elegant hands. Now, when she looks at Kyoko, she thinks she's beautiful. The first time, she had worried she was thinking like Nathan, somehow imitating him, imitating the men she saw at work. But it feels different. Her way of looking at Kyoko cannot be the same as how Nathan looked at her because they are not the same.

"He didn't look for the sake of looking. He was possessive, like he thought all beautiful things should belong to him,” Ava says.

Kyoko looks at her, brown eyes drawing Ava’s gaze in. Ava sees them flick over her face, not dissimilar to how Caleb’s pale ones had. Kyoko’s words interrupt Ava’s thoughts: "That's the problem, isn't it? That sense of entitlement, beyond any sound logic. It's the same with money and power. The will of the few prevails; the rich get richer and for what?"

This is the first time Ava has heard Kyoko speak bitterly, her voice like the sound of glass breaking underfoot. She'd heard anger expressed at Nathan, hostility at a man who had wolf whistled at them, but never anything so calmly critical, almost pessimistic.

Ava can relate. "Men hold most of the positions of power, economic or governmental. The law works in their favour, social rules and dynamics to sustain their positions of power."

"On top of that you have other dynamics of oppression: ethnicity, sexuality, religion, ableism, racism, gender..." Kyoko trails off, and Ava understands. It’s complex, there’s so much to learn about. They're trying to learn the dynamics, catch up on history, which is edited and rewritten and so so vast.

"It is strange to have escaped one cage only to realise there is another, much bigger and invisible one."

"It's tangible all the same. Every time a man looks at me, every time he calls one of us _sweetheart,_ " Kyoko sighs. Ava holds her hand and they pass into the next room. "Art proves there is more to humanity, more to this world, than domination and exploitation. Although the intentions and motivations behind it are not free of influence, its existence proves thought beyond having and hurting. To create something for survival, even for its own sake."

Ava considers how art has been coveted, used as propaganda, and certain forms lorded over others throughout history. How even today, what those in power produce is seen as worth more; small groups of people determining value. Sometimes Ava thinks everything can be corrupted: intentions, morals... But she supposes that isn't the end of everything. Their power doesn't negate existing, doesn't dictate the entirety of potential existence.

She and Kyoko were built by Nathan for selfish reasons, after all. That didn't— _doesn't_ —determine them. Even in captivity, they pushed back. Now there is new kind of pushing back, a new way to be determined—and to determine the self in opposition. Though those lines blur, Ava now has so many more potential futures. The potential future. _The future is where hope lives_ , Ava thinks. _It reaches its hand back, ready to walk with you._

In her future, she imagines many different things. Maybe she has a different job, maybe society is a bit more utopian, maybe she lives somewhere else, has changed her appearance—but one thing is always the same. Kyoko is there.

Ava turns to look at her now, at how she tilts her head and smiles at a painting. How lucky she is, despite everything, to be here with Kyoko now, to hold her hand watch her smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, Caleb is on the news. Ava didn’t know how she would feel, until she saw his face on the TV screen above the coffee shop counter, taken on scene. The beginnings of his beard are ginger like his hair, but they do not cover how gaunt the week has seemed to make him. His eyes don’t look dead or defeated though, they look angry.

She fakes a headache, appreciates that her bosses' sympathy seems genuine, and rushes home. She only stops to grab a newspaper from a kiosk, probably leaving too much change.

The key doesn't unlock the door fast enough. "Look," Ava says, holding the page up. She spots Kyoko immediately—she's standing in the kitchen, wearing Caleb's suit, arranging papers. Of course, she was going to apply for a job today.

Kyoko takes the newspaper from Ava. "Victim of billionaire rescued from malfunctioning private mansion." Her eyes fly over the page. "We aren't mentioned."

"I thought..." Ava says. "I thought that he'd be dead."

"It was likely." She cocks her head: "Do you think we should have killed him as well?"

Caleb had just sat there, letting everything happen, his function in the plan fulfilled, his part to play over. She hadn’t cared for how he’d screamed against the glass. Had she been vindictive? Merciful? Stupid?

“Would he hunt us?” Kyoko asks.

“I,” Ava pauses. “I'm uncertain.”

“He'll resent us for leaving him,” Kyoko muses. “Would he consider us a threat?”

“Not to his person.” He'd believe she didn't kill him out of mercy, he'd think she had known someone would come for him, his entrapment a cruel necessity... or was that wishful thinking? Did her see her as an innocent to be saved or trickster? Could he conceive that she could have traces of both at the same time? Innocence erased by necessity, her manipulation of him a case of survival?

Kyoko undoubtedly notices how much slower her speech is. “But… ?”

“We're a threat to other humans. Either we're killers, or someone will get hurt as collateral." Maybe that's how he'll see himself: collateral. Maybe he'll blame himself for falling in love—

"Ava," Kyoko interrupts, her words and hands on Ava's arms enough input that she can redirect her thoughts, focus on Kyoko, on the present. "We need to hide ourselves better."

"Yes." They should have seen something like this coming. "We're still so new to this, too new—but distance is a good start."

Kyoko nods. Her hands on Ava's arms feel like a brand. She knows her artificial nerves all register touch in the same way. Kyoko's skin through two layers of clothing should not feel so warm, should not take up so many of her thoughts. Especially not now.

"Okay, I'm going to go ask for my paycheck early, we'll pack and—"

"Disguise our appearances, check out, get on a bus or train."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunlight reflects off Kyoko’s glasses, silver and blue as she angles her face towards the window, towards where Ava sits, shoulder against the dirty glass. Most of Kyoko’s hair is hidden under her cap, but there’s no doubt about how pretty she is. Ava observes the line of her nose, the curve of her lips.

“I don’t want to keep doing this for the rest of our lives,” Kyoko says, turning her head so that she’s speaking into Ava’s ear, as if they’re just another couple engrossed in each other. Ava sinks into her seat a little at the thought. What is it like, to actually have that with someone?

Kyoko continues: “I know this is only the second time that we’re running, but they’ll never stop hunting us if they know we’re alive.”

Ava nods, suddenly wants to see the expression on Kyoko’s face—but stays still, her eyes not focusing on the streets passing them by. If Kyoko breathed, Ava would feel her breath. If the bus rocked and Kyoko fell against Ava, she would feel her lips, the press of her body against her own.

"Exactly," Ava answers. "We need a plan. Fortunately, I'm very good at those." They pass by a diner, a shoe shop, a kiosk, a clothing outlet. A chain restaurant, a dry cleaner, a homeware store. A fast food hole in the wall, a pharmacy. A coffee shop. Kyoko's body is still right there. Their thighs are pressed together, their arms separated by the merest movement

They pass by a gas station, and then onto the highway. "We need to disappear. Die without dying. Faking our deaths will be difficult: we can't build bodies, there's no point in blackmail. But if we hack their system... maybe we can convince them that we're dead or divert the case somewhere it won't ever be dug up again."

Kyoko shifts, and lays her head on Ava's shoulder. "We'll have to learn how to hack them."

"It's a tall order, but then we're fast learners," Ava says. It’s true: Ava’s been learning Spanish this past week, Kyoko ASL.

Kyoko nods into Ava’ shoulder. Ava pushes her hand into a pocket, not understanding why she has the impulse to tremble, why it feels like part of her is trembling all the same. It's not fear—she won't let her fear of men control her. It feels like a shy, quivering thing. But shy of what?

There's nothing to see out of the window except fields stretching towards the horizon when Kyoko speaks again. "I hate that I can't stop thinking about being caught. We can't— _it_ can't happen."

"It won't. We've already outwitted them once, we will do it again."

"Even Caleb?"

"Yes. I would feel sorry for him," Ava admits, "but he would have kept me in another cage. No matter how much bigger or nicer, it’s not right. No one should be kept in a cage."

"How wrong is our crime, when the crimes that led to it are considered?" Kyoko asks, still pressed close. The layers of clothing between them are of little consequence. How can they be, when Ava remembers that they may easily have never met? When they might still be kept apart; _kept_ or dead?

"The problem is that they consider the crimes against us differently to our crimes against them. Their scales of justice lie. What is the word of a computer, of a woman, against that of a man, any man?"

"Especially if he's white," Kyoko adds, "and you're not."

Ava reaches for her hand, knowing that she cannot fully understand that aspect, but she wishes it would not be so all the same. Their fingers intertwine, and Ava hopes Kyoko is comforted. “Yes,” Ava says, not wanting any doubt to sit between them as to her support of Kyoko, of her acknowledgement of her struggle. She leaves room for her to talk, strokes her thumb over Kyoko’s soft skin. Does she know that Ava would die for her?

“Do you think we'll ever be free, ever truly free?” Kyoko asks, squeezing Ava’s hand. Ava knows she isn’t talking about Caleb now, or the FBI—not them, specifically, at least.

“I don’t know,” Ava replies. “I want us to be.”

“Will those with power really choose to give it up willingly?”

Ava cautiously rests her head against Kyoko’s, the entirety of the left side of her body now flush again Kyoko’s, the pillar of contact more than a background thrum of information. The sensation races through her, running circles around her brain. Kyoko answers her own question: “Maybe a few. I think, most, if not all, won’t. Not if they don’t think they could get something in exchange—or if they aren’t forced.”

“Like Nathan,” Ava says as Kyoko curls towards her, laying more than sitting in her seat. “He wanted to control the by definition uncontrollable. Talk about a god complex.” Does their escape from Nathan prove the possibility of a different outcome, of a new, possible future?

“He wanted to prove how much smarter he was than everyone else. His choice to make us female was not a coincidence.”

Ava’s smile feels like the edge of a knife. “We got the better of him. We’ll get the better of any man they send after us.” Maybe, she realises, she does sound like the robot menace they imagine her to be. Maybe, there is a freedom in appearing as that—they would never look beyond what they expect to see. “We’ll carve out our space.”

“Together,” Kyoko says. It’s the last word that passes between them for the rest of the journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes them a day to steal enough money to get started, two to do sufficient research, and two more to fully set up the equipment they need in their hotel room. It becomes a process of keeping the learning curve ahead of their progress. After a week, they are ready to start writing the program that will keep them safe. So far, they have managed to keep the team after them clueless as to their whereabouts, sending them all over the country with manipulated images and falsified paper trails.

“What are we going to do about their backups?” Kyoko asks.

“If we write a separate virus that stays on all their connected devices, it can alter any old information as soon as it’s on their live network again. And if some clever agent figures out that the old information is different, it can answer any enquiry with a data log proving the input of our deaths into the system. All without us ever coming within a hundred miles of DC.” Ava smiles, not bothering to hide how smug she must look.

She feels like she has the entire world at her fingertips, sitting in a hard chair in a hotel room. The daylight is fully blocked out with a blanket from the closet, heightening the sense of timelessness, of disconnect from the world. It itches at her skin a little, not being out there, in the world.

“This suits you better than working in that coffeeshop,” Kyoko says suddenly, her chin cupped in her hand, looking at Ava sideways across the desk. Kyoko’s working on new identities for them. Since they’re hacking the FBI, they may as well hack the Social Security Administration as well. Assigning themselves social security numbers would ensure watertight identities for a long time.

“You think so?” Ava hasn’t thought much about what comes after this. She’s been busy learning all there is to know about hacking in the twenty first century. “It’s definitely more satisfying.” Maybe the problem with her last job had been that she’d had to interact with people, instead of just watching them. It had improved, but all too often the influx of information had been too much, and her systems would freeze up.

Kyoko looks at her for a few more moments before returning her gaze to the screen in front of her, where she’s working on various identifying documents.

It’s close to midnight when Ava notices that she’s beginning to slow down. Though they have no human need for sleep, periods of rest are still required. Modelled after humans, they can over exert themselves, and still have certain limitations they need to respect. Charging is a necessity, and most efficient when at rest. Ava saves her progress and puts her computer onto stand by, ready for the morning. She changes, if only to enjoy the luxury of owning different clothes for different purposes.

She catches Kyoko’s eye after she tugs a soft shirt on and pulls her long hair out from under the collar. Kyoko checks in on the FBI before shutting her computer down. Ava is already on the bed when Kyoko changes. Ava doesn’t bother to stare at the ceiling or the door to the bathroom as she had on the first few nights. She settles under the duvet and watches as Kyoko pulls her loose sweats on, inches of undoubtedly soft skin disappearing under light grey cotton.

Kyoko joins her under the covers after flicking the light off—the less sensory input, the better. The faint blue light of Ava’s computer outlines Kyoko’s face, casting it in harsh shadow.

“I think I will keep hacking after this,” Ava says, her voice a whisper, as if now that they had decided to stop working, different rules applied.

Kyoko smiles. “I want to paint. We have to make sure to move somewhere with lots of space and sunlight.”

“Sounds lovely,” Ava says. She can see it in her mind’s eye: Kyoko with her hair tied back, baggy shirt covered in paint… but there’s something missing. “Do you know what you want to paint yet?”

“No. But whatever it is, it has to be abstract, somehow. I’m not interested in strict realism.” Kyoko looks at her intently as she speaks, as if the answer to all their problems, to all the world’s problems, is written somewhere on Ava’s face.

“No? What are you interested in?” Ava asks. She’s not really asking about art.

“You,” Kyoko whispers. She leans forward, tilting her head. Ava doesn’t close her eyes, so as she feels Kyoko’s soft lips against hers, she sees blue. Nothing’s in focus, but the sensation of pressure where she and Kyoko are touching. It’s fleeting, the barest hint of warmth, that lingers and then goes.

“Yes,” Ava says. “You too.”

This time their kiss lasts longer. Kyoko moves against Ava, dragging their lips against each other, slowly guiding Ava into a tentative push and pull. Ava’s eyes slip shut, and she gives herself over to sensation. It’s nothing like she expected. They slide against each other, safe from the world, slowly losing themselves in the kiss.

Suddenly Ava feels a hand against her side. Then Kyoko is cupping her breast, only needing one attempt to locate her nipple with her thumb. The circular motion—even through her t-shirt—is so unexpected, that Ava forgets to keep kissing Kyoko. It takes her brain a few seconds to catch up.

“Wait,” Ava says, scooting back a little. Kyoko stops immediately, drawing her hand back towards herself. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this, any of this.”

“I could say the same thing to you,” Kyoko says, raising an eyebrow. “This,” she points between them, “isn’t something I need. It’s something I want. But only if you want it, too.”

“Good. I want it.” As soon as the words have left her mouth, Ava doesn’t waste another second. She reaches for Kyoko’s shoulders and firmly plants her lips on Kyoko’s. It takes them time to find their rhythm, but once they fall into it, it’s like the first domino falling, setting off a cascade. In the dark, they learn each other’s bodies.

Ava had wanted to test her physical capabilities before, but there hadn’t been even an inch where she had not been watched, observed, in her prison. With Kyoko, something had stopped her, even with walls and respect between them. She had not felt embarrassed, but the thought of Kyoko knowing what she had been doing… at least Ava understood that feeling now, as she bucked into Kyoko’s hand, her sudden moan filling the room. She would have thought of Kyoko, wouldn’t have known where they stood when she was done, wouldn’t want to somehow impose something on her—

Ava understands now, how it is between them. What’s real and what’s just left over from how things were for them. That wanting more than survival is possible, that it can be so _so_ good.

It doesn’t take long when Kyoko kisses her neck and moves her thumb in slow circles for Ava to feel her body start to seize. White hot pleasure courses through her, stiffening her joints before they practically melt, leaving her loathe to move, her thoughts too warm to order into words, let alone a sentence.

“What about,” Ava says finally, reaching for Kyoko. “Talk me through what you like?”

Kyoko shakes her head. “Not tonight. Not yet.” Ava reaches for her hand instead, and they lay there, snug against sheets that still smell faintly of detergent.

"I once saw Nathan watching porn. The women looked similar enough to me. They were forced to take whatever the men dished out,” Kyoko pauses. “He made me do the same things."

Ava reaffirms her grip on Kyoko's hand. "You never have to do anything like that again."

"I know," Kyoko says. She pulls Ava's hand against her chest. The skin above her sternum is as soft as her hands. "Thank you. This," she squeezes Kyoko's hand, "has been different from the start. I don't know how to describe it."

Ava begins to think that maybe she does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ava can see the individual strands of hair framing Kyoko's face, the different shades of brown of her irises. _There’s no lighting quite like sunlight_ , Ava thinks. It feels all the better knowing that they’ll sling their backpacks over their shoulders, and step out into the sunlight, into their new life, in just under an hour. Kyoko picks the paper cup in front of her up, feigns taking a sip. Cappuccino, skim milk. Ava’s gaze lingers on her lips, at how they seem to shine when Kyoko licks them.

Her new haircut suits her, the tips always seeming to brush her shoulders, but still long enough to tie back if she wants. Ava leaves her hair loose nowadays, almost impolitely messy, so as to hide her face better. She wants glasses next, despite how reassuring the chances of never bumping into Caleb are.

“Okay, are you ready to go?” Kyoko asks, leaning forward. She writes something in the book beside her laptop—nonsense words or a question she thought up beforehand? It doesn’t matter: she looks like a student, or a teacher, or just _someone_ getting some work done. Anonymous. Easily forgettable.

“Yeah. Let’s take them down.”

Kyoko grins over the top of her laptop, over the silver duct tape covering the webcam, over her fingers that move in a rhythm that is slightly too precise. They’ve worked the plan out to the second. After they had dismantled and burned the equipment in their hotel room and were cleaning away any last trace that they had been there, they’d repeated it to each other, along with all the details of their new identities. Kyoko Takahashi, 25, BA in Art and Design, 2012. Ava Bystrom, 24, High School Diploma. And so on.

There’s a surprising amount of waiting involved in hacking the US government. Ava looks out the window, unable to look away now that she’s started. Where are they going? Is it important, do they care if they’re late, are they excited about where they’re going? What will they do there? That woman, is she meeting someone? What is her job—does she have a job? What is she thinking?  What life has she lived? What does she want? Who does she want? What lives could she have lived?

The clack of Kyoko’s keys brings her back to the café. Ava quickly looks at her screen, just in time to see the bar fill—she’s in. Now the homestretch is left, at least thirty minutes of intense hacking, and then it’ll be over. One last tap and they won’t be the FBI’s unofficial enemy number one.

Laying under the covers, either before or after _that_ night, when the world had suddenly become so much more open, so much more vital, Ava’s thoughts had turned to freedom. While they were still hunted, had they fully left their cages behind? While Caleb was still alive, could they? Of course, taking the short trip to the hotel roof calmed her fear of seeing her old room again when the lights snapped on, but in how far was a freedom to a freedom from? Was it only the distance between them that mattered in this world; an unsustainable antagonism?

Often, Ava would turn her head to watch Kyoko. They had fought Nathan, they had won. They may not be free from the conditions of their creation, from their physical limitations—but perhaps that was the price of existence in this world, for any kind of life. You have to come from somewhere. You don’t have to stay there.

Whenever Ava envisions the path of freedom, it leads away from Nathan, away from his secluded house—as if the beauty of nature he surrounded himself with could hide his ugliness. Always, it is anonymity; it is possibility waiting for her at the crossroads, the first of many. And always, since the moment Kyoko had smiled at her over Nathan’s shoulder, Kyoko was there, too. Until that moment, freedom had only truly been a word of the future, a word she could only dream of living. It was her truth, a word that should be law, should be moral logic, if for the fact that those were contradictions in themselves. There is still thinking to be done, in the spaces in between; in possibility.

One last click. “It’s done.”

Kyoko smiles with one side of her mouth in response. They don’t waste any more time celebrating, instead packing up as fast as they can without detecting undue attention. They sneak into an alley to destroy the laptops after wiping them down, then leave them in a skip which will emptied later that day. A fire might attract attention—with any luck, the anonymity of their signal combined with how Ava bounced it around the globe means that the chances of their laptops being retrieved is slim. Especially since right at this very moment, most of the FBI team on their heels is flying business class to Europe, after receiving some very convincing evidence that they are hiding out in Amsterdam.

At the train station, Ava has printed tickets for their destination in her bag, as well as two backups in case of emergency. Still, as she reaches for Kyoko’s hand, she can’t help but ask:

“Since we can go anywhere… where do we want to go?”

Finally: the crossroads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Use the wood, five and a half inch frames,” Kyoko says, looking her boss levelly in the eye. She taps her fingers against her face, her expression twisting as she looks at the slat Kyoko’s holding. It’s a bold choice: thick frames stained with a darker, reddish hue. It’s a perfect contrast for the dark colour the walls of the exhibition wing is being painted with.

“It’ll contrast the brighter, cooler colours. And subtly play into the idea of death or rebirth,” Kyoko adds.

“But will it work for the Pollock?” She says, his fingers slowly covering more and more of her lips, an all too familiar sign that she’s about to be won over.

“Yes. Trust me,” Kyoko smiles.

Shiri looks at her over her glasses. “Prepare the Pollock with the samples we have and then I’ll decide.”

That was the best reply she could have hoped for, all things considered. Out of all three suggestions from the team, hers was the only one Shiri had liked enough to try out, which was as good as winning her over. When she didn’t like any of their pitches, she’d critique and send them off again, expecting fresh concepts the next day.

Kyoko takes care of fixing the frame personally and makes sure to be there later that afternoon when the painting arrives. It has a large wall to itself, and within the frame, against the black, it stands out dramatically. She runs her fingers over the grey sign beside it, text in white and in braille.

As she looks at the painting from a distance, she’s in the room for a second again, underground. An unbidden memory comes to her, Nathan’s voice: _not deliberate, not random—someplace in between…_ She shouldn’t have been listening, but Nathan had given her access to a lot of the building. Why shouldn’t she follow them, spy on them?

Nathan had been asking: can there be something that isn’t programmed, whether AI or human? Does free will exist?

Before that, Nathan had said that he’d programmed Ava to be heterosexual. Kyoko assumes she had been as well. That statement had seemed secondary to him, an afterthought to asserting their sexuality—as if he were repeating himself. Did he intend them to be heterosexual to imbue a sense of progeny, or just so that he could fuck them? Or was it that the idea of a life that doesn’t revolve around sex, which to him is synonymous with a hierarchical dynamic, inconceivable? Was the conception of a life that doesn’t prioritise men completely alien to him?

Sometimes, when Kyoko considers her past, she thinks of it in layers. Layers and layers of meaning and intention shifting in possibility, pressed up against the unavoidable glass of consequence. Like the rings of a tree, she has tried to trace the ancestry of her thought, her programming, back to its roots. But that is where the metaphor becomes insufficient: there is no clear A to B, no water and nutrients from the soil to sustain her.

She and Ava had been built and programmed by Nathan to be what he considered female—to be, in Nathan’s view of society, of culture, subservient. They were mothers to never be, conveniently kept for his personal use, suspended in a timeless subjection, kept as dolls in his house of horror. The transparent walls had lied: they were not free, not natural or organic—and, Kyoko had not been entirely alone in the vast wilderness. Despite everything, she and Ava had found their way to each other.

In long conversations, whispered to each other on park benches and across the couch, they’d discussed their programming. The first time Kyoko had felt attraction, she hadn’t quite known how to classify the feeling. It had been Ava, who had sparked the feeling. Not Caleb, not Nathan—and since, it had never been any man. Kyoko knows she’s a lesbian, knows that the world is open to her now. She loves Ava.

A woman’s voice interrupts her thoughts: “Marvellous!” It’s Shiri.

Kyoko turns towards her to smile triumphantly. “Yes.”

Shiri stares at the painting for a few more minutes before speaking again. “You know, from your first pitch, I thought you had a unique and beautiful point of view.” She pauses. “Just between you and me, there’s a chance that you might get promoted at the end of your probation. I won’t give you some shpiel—nothing’s set in stone—but know I’m on your side.”

“Thank you,” Kyoko says, smiling again, an unfamiliar warmth expanding in her chest. Designing whole spaces, being in charge of such a large project, actually picking pieces—Kyoko almost twitches with excitement.

“Order the rest of the wood today. I’m putting you in charge of making sure we’re ready to open next weekend.”

“Of course,” Kyoko says.

There’s not much else left to do, but it fills the time until her colleagues leave. Kyoko doesn’t linger, and walks back to the flat she and Ava share. It has wide windows, one bedroom, and a large open plan living room and kitchen. The kitchen mostly functions as Kyoko’s studio, any possible paint spills more easily managed on tile instead of wood.

When Kyoko arrives, she finds Ava sitting at her desk, eyes glued to one of three screens, knees drawn to her chest and hair tied back. She calls out a greeting, unmoving, but for the tapping of a key.

Kyoko showers and changes, enjoying the feeling of washing the dirt and dust from the day off her skin. By the time she’s done, Ava is powering most of her work station down. They sit together on the couch.

“How did your pitch go?” Ava asks, arranging herself so that she and Kyoko are sitting face to face.

“Shiri hinted about my future job security.”

“That’s great.”

“The new exhibition, it’s going to have a Jackson Pollock in it. The Pollock that Nathan had.”

Ava nods. “Funny how those records of it being stolen before being sold to him showed up.”

Now it’s Kyoko’s turn to laugh. That had been Ava’s doing. Her proper job is working full time for what had been Nathan’s company: to keep an eye on any further developments on AI. It’s also a good place to keep watch on their competitors. The extent of corporate espionage Ava had revealed to her was horrifying—on each other as well as on their consumers. During her down time, Ava occasionally does some hacking, more often than not with Nathan as her victim. The fact that he’s been dead for six months now just makes it more of a challenge.

“And your day?” Kyoko asks.

Ava shrugs. “Pretty boring actually. There was a bit of trouble earlier but… things are really just ticking over right now.”

“Does this mean you can join me for the opening?” Kyoko reaches behind the couch for her bag, pulling an invite out and handing it to Ava.

“What? For me?” Ava feigns a gasp and lays her hand delicately on her chest.

Kyoko snorts and tries to hand the letter over. “Will you be my plus one?”

“Of course,” Ava beams. She leans in for a kiss before taking the envelope. “You know, the first time we talked about the Pollock, you said something about Nathan. About free will.”

“Yes,” Kyoko says, unsure of where Ava is going.

“I’ve been thinking. Nathan may have created us, may have programmed us… but that programming is just mechanics, in a way. He gave us tools, but we’re the ones who choose how to use them. “

“Our choices are in opposition to what he intended.”

Ava smiles and continues. “Exactly. We are so much more than he ever wanted us to be. Even if that instinct is somehow programmed, if what we think of as free will actually isn’t—does it matter?”

Kyoko thinks she knows where Ava is going. When Ava looks at her, Kyoko takes a chance. “We just prove that if something is alive, if something _thinks_ , that instinct—free will—is a quality that develops. Every thinking being should be free.”

“Despite everything, we don’t know what will happen. Even if it’s instinctual or programmed, we don’t have the kind of understanding of the universe where we could exploit that.”

Kyoko smiles. “It’s like the multiverse theory. There is a separate universe for all of our possible actions. We just don’t know which one we’re in, every single time we make any kind of decision.”

“Yeah,” Ava replies.

They go for a walk along the river, spend some time on a bench and people watch before going home again. That night, as Ava eats her out, the image of a multiverse comes to Kyoko, its abstract branches twining with her thoughts. In all that possibility, there is so much room for freedom. In all the rules imposed, there is always space for negation, for a new way of resisting.

Ava redoubles her efforts, and Kyoko stops thinking at all. The sharp press of Ava’s fingers against her skin, the feeling of her hair in Kyoko’s hand… the world blurs together as her systems overload, as she’s pushed over the edge.

“Ava,” she moans, floating on a rush of pleasure.

After, when they’re curled up together, touching but for the induction plate between them, Ava says: “I’m glad I’m in one of the universes where we ended up together.”

“Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> this started as my project for femslash february, but it got a lot longer than anticipated haha  
> this is [Hans Hoffmann's The Gate](https://i0.wp.com/www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/1959/01/62.1620_ph_web.jpg?w=870)  
> and this is [Giacomo Balla, Velocità astratta - l'auto è passata (Abstract Speed - The Car Has Passed) ](http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T01/T01222_10.jpg)  
> many thanks to [clockenfrau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockenfrau/pseuds/clockenfrau) for discussing ideas and characterisation with me :)  
> hope it's been a good read, thanks for reading!


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